Various internet-based electronic invoice processing systems are known in the art whereby a vendor can electronically create and present a bill to a customer for review. It is envisioned that such electronic systems would displace traditional paper-based billing systems wherein a vendor prints and mails an invoice to a customer.
However, widely divergent accounts receivables systems and accounts payables systems have prevented electronic invoicing from becoming ubiquitous. Even with development of standards such as EDI and XML, extensive customization is needed to configure the interface between each vendor and each customer accounting system for the exchange of invoice data. As a result, only customers with considerable influence over their vendors have been able to persuade the majority of their vendors to comply with their electronic invoicing requirements.
Due to the structural problems inherent to electronic invoicing, the most common means for a vendor to send invoice data to a customer remains: i) traditional printing and mailing of a paper invoice to the customer; and ii) generation of an electronic image (such as PDF, Tiff, or other) of an invoice (e.g. an electronic image representation of a printed invoice) for emailing to the customer.
Manual data entry remains the most common means for a customer to enter invoice data into its accounting systems. If a paper invoice is received, a human operator will typically key the invoice data into manual data entry (MDE) screens of the accounting system. If an electroning image (PDF, Tiff, or other) of an invoice is received, it is typically printed to paper form and then a human operator keys the invoice data into the MDE screens of the accounting system.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for an invoice transaction system for automating the process of receiving invoice data. Further, there is a need in the art for such invoice transaction system to further facilitate, on an automated bases, validation and substantive evaluation of the invoice data.